Kanye West is an influential person when it comes to the future of the fashion industry. He is in the process of creating his own clothing line called “Donda”, that is already experiencing a lot of publicity from prominent fashion designers. He talks about 3D printing and how “it will ruin the fashion industry”, the same way that the Internet has ruined the music industry. He backs his claims due to the visit to the “Tumo Centre for Creative Technologies” in Yerevan, Armenia.” Upon his visit he was shown a 3D printer and concluded that a machine will soon be the future for designing and manufacturing textile, opposed to actually people. The tour guide at the school told him that the printer machine does not do any of the designing, and that it needs a person to innovate those ideas. Kanye says he understand that, he just has concerns that, “There will come a time where it will be able to do just that”.

Other artist seem to think that 3D printing is expanding the horizons of the fashion industry. Take Katy Perry for instance, in this photo her backup dancers are seen here wearing 3D printed Helmets created by the use of LED technology. The creator/designer of the helmet, Jason Lopes, made a statement “Traditionally, it’s virtually impossible and very costly to produce such complex personalized pieces by hand, taking into consideration the time to work out the programming of the lighting elements. With Stratasys 3D printing technology, we were able to develop fully-illuminated pieces with a lightning fast turnaround of under a week. For developing one-off props for the music industry, this is revolutionary.”

3D printing is no doubt on the rise in the fashion industry. More fashion designers are incorporating 3D printing methods with their creations. I personally do not believe that 3D printing will ruin the fashion industry, however, it will lead to more innovation when it comes to design. I think that people will be able to think of what was before, considered to be “incomprehensible designs” and use the 3D printing machine as a way to bring their ideas to life. I think 3D printing will most definitely change the traditional idea of fashion and make it into something more modern. But isn’t that was fashion is all about? The yearn to create something different and create new styles for that time period. I think 3D printing will eventually be the future of the fashion industry.

Sources

Alvarez, E. (2015, September 30). Kanye West is afraid 3D printers will ruin the fashion industry. Retrieved September 30, 2015.